Welcome to the world. If you can’t tell by the title I wrote this on the day of your birth. More accurately the night of your birth. I wanted to tell you a little bit about your birth and the world you are being born into. First, let’s start with the positive. Your birth was completely uneventful. It was one of the most boring events I have taken part in and I mean that in the best way possible. Your mother and I were scheduled to be at the hospital by 11:00. We were there around 10:30, got sent back to the staging/recovering room until 2:30 and by 2:59 PM you were out. Delivered via c-section in a room as cold as a butcher’s shop. Your wailing was the first excitement we had all day, aside from your mother’s belly being cut open and her organs placed to the side, and I am not ashamed to admit a few tears found their way down my cheek listening to your cries.
With your birth being surprisingly uneventful let us talk about the world. You were conceived, carried, and delivered in the midst of a global pandemic. As of your birthday 250,000 Americans have died from Covid-19 and 11,000,000 have been infected. Incase we have eradicated Covid-19 by the time you are reading this or no one has told you anything about it let me describe it in some brief detail.
Covid-19 is a respiratory disease or thought to be one. It mainly attacks the lungs but has other symptoms like the thickening of blood, the lose of taste and smell, and can cause permanent brain damage. Some of the people that have survived the disease have not recovered, many finding themselves with chronic pain, fatigue, or heart disease. The people that have died from it have done so alone. Only able to be with family in their final moments via video chat. Isolated, alone, and struggling for breath 250,000 Americans have died so far.
I am certain you know the final count and I am equally certain I know it as well and will never forget it. 2020 has been a year. I learned about your conception when I jokingly said to your mother that there are going to be a few babies born due to the lockdowns and she looked at me and told me she had news for me.
2020 was also a year of great social upheaval. I am hopeful that by the time you are reading this that we, as Americans, are no loner arguing if a black life matters or not. Back in May of this year a police officer knelt on the neck of a man, George Floyd, suspected of paying with a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill, most likely by accident, for over eight minutes. Despite George Floyd’s pleas that he couldn’t breathe and calling out for his mother the officer continued to kneel on his neck. After video was released of the incident the American public took to the streets in the largest mass protests in our history. The President of the United States responded by ordering federal law enforcement agencies to gas, snatch, and detain peaceful protesters in one of the most despicable displays and overreaches of authority we have ever seen.
That isn’t quite it. America at the time of your birth was deeply divided on many issues with the same people ending up on the same side of different issues. The people for racial justice in America were also for wearing a mask to help slow the spread of Covid-19 and believed that every American citizen has the right to vote in a free and fair election. Oh yes our very system of government was under attack when you were born. In fact you were born just 15 days after the election. The counting of votes clearly showed that the will of the American people was for Joe Biden to be the next President of the United States but the current President, Donald Trump, refused to face defeat and instead choose to play golf and tweet angerly that he was the real winner of the election.
You probably read all of this and thought, why in the hell did you two idiots decide to have a kid in the year 2020. First off, sweetheart, we didn’t know the pandemic was coming when we made the decision to try and have you, and secondly, it’s not all bad. I mentioned the President-elect Joe Biden, but what I didn’t tell you is his running mate was Kamala Harris. The first female, black, and Asian Vice President of the United States. You will grow up in a world with fewer glass ceilings that we have ever seen in America, and that isn’t all. Days after Kamala Harris become the first female Vice President-elect the Miami Marlins hired Kim Ng to b the first female General Manager in Major League Baseball. I am hoping that by the time you are reading this that there has been a female President of the United States, a female head coach in the NFL and NBA and that you come of age in a world where you can truly be anything you want.
David Huzzard Writes 